CSO launches 115th season brilliantly

Concert review

9:08 AM,
Sep. 26, 2009

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Paavo Järvi's first program of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's 115th season on Friday seemed calculated to show off everything the orchestra can do, and more.

It was an ambitious evening, which included a Strauss tone poem, Borodin's gorgeous "Polovtsian Dances" and a twentysomething rising star performing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.

But then, there was also the United States premiere of Symphony No. 7, "Pietas," a 40-minute choral symphony by Erkki-Sven Tüür, co-commissioned by the CSO. Dedicated to the Dalai Lama, it is an important work, an all-encompassing hymn to the ...